Chapter 17
E mma
“Are you seriously telling me that you have a second date with Marcus Carelli of Carelli Capital Management?” Kendall’s eyes look like they’re about to pop through my phone screen.
“Yes, why? Do you know him?” I angle the phone slightly and look around to make sure the bookstore is still empty.
My boss is off having a long lunch, and though it would’ve been smart to use this downtime to edit the short story I’ve been procrastinating on, I couldn’t resist video-calling Kendall about my date instead.
“Do I know Marcus Carelli?” Her voice rises. “Are you shitting me? Are you that oblivious to the world?”
“Um…”
“Never mind.” Her face grows in the phone camera as she leans in. “I should know by now. If it’s not in a book or doesn’t have a tail, it doesn’t exist for you.”
I sigh. My friend is nothing if not a drama queen. “Just tell me already. What do you know about Marcus? Because I’m seeing him again tonight, and—”
“You couldn’t be bothered to google him?”
“I didn’t get a chance. I got home pretty late, had to feed the cats right away and then respond to some editing clients.
And today was an extra-early shift with a bunch of morning deliveries, so I’m just now catching my breath.
” I also spent some quality time with my vibrator last night, needing to relieve the tension from the date, but Kendall doesn’t need to know that.
I suppose I could’ve spent that time stalking Marcus online, but it honestly didn’t occur to me.
I’ve never dated anyone who had anything interesting for me to find.
Kendall rolls her eyes, making sure the camera catches her doing so.
“Yeah, okay, whatever. Listen up, Miss Oblivious.” She leans in until her perfectly shaped nose dominates the screen.
“Anyone who’s ever glanced at The Wall Street Journal or turned on CNBC—as in, everyone in NYC with the possible exception of you and your cats—knows about Marcus Carelli.
He’s one of the biggest movers and shakers on Wall Street.
His fund has some insane number of billions under management, and his presentations can make or break a stock.
Don’t you remember that thing with the corrupt tire company a couple of years ago, where a prominent hedge fund manager bet the stock would go to zero—and it did?
It was all over the news, and they even made a documentary about it on Netflix. ”
“Maybe.” I frown because that does ring a bell. “That was Marcus’s fund?”
“Yep. He laid out the case against the company at one of those big-name investment conferences, and the stock dropped like sixty percent that day. The CEO was crying foul all over the news, but the regulators refused to do anything, and a few months later, the company filed for bankruptcy.”
“Wow.” I do recall the story now. It was all over the headlines, to the point that even I couldn’t miss it.
The tire company—an old and highly respected industry leader—had been accused by some hedge fund big-shot of everything from manufacturing defects to slave-labor conditions in its factories, and the resulting publicity tanked the company’s stock, hastening its demise.
And that big-shot was Marcus.
The man who called me “kitten” and openly told me he wants to fuck me.
The man I’m going on a date with tonight.
For the second time.
“—has been all over the Forbes list of billionaires,” Kendall continues, and I blink, realizing I briefly tuned her out.
“Billionaires?” My voice sounds choked, but I can’t help it. I knew Marcus was wealthy, of course—everything about him spoke of money—but there’s a huge difference between a run-of-the-mill asset manager and a hedge fund titan who can take down a huge public company with a few PowerPoint slides.
Marcus isn’t just big leagues; he’s the freaking Olympics.
“Yeah, he’s made the list several years in a row,” Kendall says. “I can’t believe you didn’t know. He must’ve taken you someplace nice. He did, right?” Her eyes narrow.
“Yeah, very nice.” I still sound like I swallowed a frog, but I’m proud of the fact that I can speak at all. “It was this little Italian place in Bensonhurst, and—”
“In Brooklyn?” Kendall’s eyebrows pull together. “Are you serious?”
“Yeah, why not?” I sound defensive, but I can’t help it. Kendall is a total snob when it comes to the boroughs. Never mind that some areas of Brooklyn are now cooler and more expensive than certain parts of Manhattan; she still thinks it’s the boonies.
She sighs and shakes her head. “You’re hopeless. Just please tell me you didn’t try to drag him to that pizza dump by your house.”
I can feel my face turning red.
“You did? Oh my God, Emma!”
“I didn’t know, okay?” I snap, feeling uncharacteristically embarrassed. “Obviously, I wouldn’t have invited him there if I’d known. But we didn’t end up going there—we went to a place he suggested—so it’s all good.”
She pinches the bridge of her nose. “Tell me you at least let him pay.”
I stare at her, unblinking.
“Emma!”
“What?” My jaw tenses. “You know how I feel about mooching.”
“It’s not mooching—it’s tradition for a man to pay when he invites a woman out—and he probably made more than your monthly salary in the time it took you to open your wallet.”
I do a quick calculation in my head. She’s not far off.
“I don’t care how much he makes,” I say. “That’s not what it’s about for me.”
Kendall’s expression softens. “I know, Ems. But letting a guy pay for dinner is not even in the same ballpark as—”
“I know. I’m not an idiot. I just can’t—” I stop and take a breath, then glance up at the clock. “Look, I should go. My boss will be returning from lunch soon.”
“Okay, but you have to tell me how it goes tonight, okay? Promise you’ll call me as soon as you’re home.”
“Will do—unless it’s late.”
Her eyes widen. “Are you planning to—”
“No! I mean, I don’t know. I mean—oh, never mind. I’ll call you as soon as I can.”
And I hang up before Kendall can give me the third degree about that .
* * *
As I sort and organize the romance novels in the back of the store, I can’t help but think about what I didn’t want to discuss with Kendall.
Am I planning to do it?
I know what Marcus wants, what he’s after.
Sex. Me and him, sweaty bodies entangled—just like the mental images I masturbated to last night.
The question is, am I going to do it? Am I going to sleep with him, knowing it’s most likely a one-time deal?
Even if there was no perfect Emmeline in the picture, a handsome, wealthy man like Marcus is bound to be inundated with women. Gorgeous, tall, slim-hipped women whose hair wouldn’t dream of frizzing up—and who’d let him pay for their meal without a qualm.
Would he call them “kitten” too, in that rough velvet voice of his, or is that pet name reserved solely for me? How did he come up with it, anyway? Is it because I like cats? As with that proposition, I should probably feel insulted, but the way Marcus said it, the way he looked at me…
“Emma? Can you come here, please?”
I stop in the middle of shelving a new shifter romance and yell out, “Coming, Mr. Smithson,” then hurry to the front, where my boss is ringing up a customer.
“Can you please recommend a new urban fantasy series to Mrs. Wilkins?” he says, nodding toward the customer—an old woman so tiny Mr. Puffs could carry her away. “She likes mind readers and such.”
“Oh, no problem,” I say, beaming at the woman. “I know just the thing.”
And pushing aside all thoughts of my dilemma, I focus on my job.